A VILLANOVA BASKETBALL BLOG

Player Evals

Graduate transfer Joe Cremo, who averaged nearly 18 points per game for Albany last season, says Villanova coach Jay Wright and the Wildcats made him “feel at home.”

The Villanova Wildcats are not slowing down.

The defending national champions landed one of the top graduate transfers on the market this past Tuesday as the University of Albany’s Joe Cremo, a 6-foot-4 shooting guard out of Scotia, New York, announced his commitment to play for the Wildcats for his senior year.

Cremo was arguably the best player in the America East Conference last season after averaging 17.8 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game, while also nailing 76 three-pointers at a 46% clip. Cremo had also been considering Kansas, Texas and Creighton before announcing his decision to become a Wildcat.

While the annual transfer flock in college basketball is populated with hundreds of players innocuously moving from one school to another, the Villanova Wildcats landed a player in Joe Cremo that may very well turn out to be an exception. Unlike the majority of transfers, Cremo will be eligible to play immediately due to his graduate transfer status and is undeniably an impactful addition for Jay Wright’s program. Considering the mild state of influx in which the Wildcat roster currently finds itself, Cremo provides the kind of veteran presence that could prove vital during this upcoming season.

He’ll join a Villanova team that won the national title but lost Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges early to the NBA, and could lose Donte DiVincenzo and Omari Spellman. Both declared for the NBA draft, but haven’t decided whether they will sign with an agent and forgo their remaining college eligibility. If both Spellman and DiVincenzo decide to strike while the iron is hot and turn pro, Jay Wright and the Wildcats will have just two returning starters in Phil Booth and Eric Paschall.

Just two weeks after local Abington High School product Eric Dixon pledged his allegiance to the Wildcats, Villanova added on to their 2019 recruiting class on Wednesday when four-star guard Justin Moore announced his decision to commit to the reigning national champs. The 6-foot-4 combo guard checks in as the No. 58 ranked player in the country according to the 247Sports Composite, and gives head coach Jay Wright the exact type of guard he loves and knows how to utilize so well. Moore, a Washington, D.C. native, chose Villanova over offers from Louisville, Maryland, Virginia, Notre Dame and Wake Forest.

Currently attending DeMatha Catholic High, Moore is a prototypical combo-guard, and fills a big need on the roster with Phil Booth exhausting his eligibility after next season and Donte DiVincenzo’s status still up in the air. Moore currently plays for Team Takeover on the Nike EYBL AAU circuit.

Justin Moore has a good combination of size and skill that he uses to be a very productive basketball player. He is a very good shooter with three-point range. Moore has the toughness of both mind and body that it takes to compete for rebounds in the lane from the guard position and the length to block some shots as a guard. In his second game of the opening weekend of Nike EYBL 2018, he made a crucial blocked shot and steal and contributed buckets in the closing two minutes of regulation to help Takeover race back from a double-figure deficit to force overtime. Moore plays the game at a nice pace and contributes at both ends of the court.

The 6-foot-7, 260-pound junior forward, a four-star prospect ranked 114th nationally in the 2019 recruiting class according to 247Sports, gave an oral commitment to Villanova University on Tuesday, April 16, during a news conference in the Abington High School auditorium. Dixon, a Willow Grove native, chose the Wildcats over Virginia, Seton Hall and Louisville.

An inside-outside scoring threat, Dixon averaged 24 points, 9.5 rebounds, and 1.5 blocked shots last season as Abington went 24-6, earned its third PIAA District 1 title in four seasons, and reached the Class 6A state quarterfinals.

Dixon becomes the third Southeastern Pennsylvania player to commit to Villanova in the last two years. Guard Collin Gillespie (Archbishop Wood) and forward Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree (Neumann-Goretti) were freshman reserves on this year’s squad.

Senior point guard Jahvon Quinerly (#5) drives past a defender while playing for his high school team, the Hudson Catholic Hawks.

“Unique circumstance” would be a way of putting it lightly when describing Jahvon Quinerly’s recruitment process over the past twelve months. The 6-foot, 170-pound point guard out of Jersey City’s Hudson Catholic High School announced his verbal commitment to Villanova University this past Wednesday via his personal Instagram account. Quinerly, a Hackensack, New Jersey native, is ranked as the No. 5 point guard and 26th overall prospect among the nation’s top 100 high school recruits according to ESPN.

Once part of head coach Sean Miller and Arizona’s loaded 2018 recruiting class that had been ranked as high as second in the country, Quinerly de-committed and reopened his recruitment this past October after the FBI conducted an extensive investigation into the underbelly of the college basketball world. Among numerous other indictments handed down, the investigation led to the arrest and firing of former Arizona assistant Emmanuel “Book” Richardson, the man most responsible for recruiting Jahvon Quinerly to the school’s Tucson, Arizona campus. What has become increasingly clear as the discovery portion of the probe comes to a close is that the amplitude of potential NCAA rules violations uncovered throughout college basketball is wide enough to fundamentally and indelibly alter the sport.

2018 prospect A.J. Reeves, a 6’5 shooting guard out of Massachusetts’ Brimmer & May School, has trimmed his extensive list of suitors to a final four of Villanova, Virginia, Providence, and Louisville. He announced the news via his personal Twitter page, and posted the photo shown to the right. The sharpshooter won the Adidas Championship last July as a member of the dominating Mass Rivals AAU program, and this past season as a junior, Reeves showcased his vastly improved three-point marksmanship, knocking down treys at a 46% clip. His ability to score off the dribble and stay engaged defensively for longer stretches, as well as learning to use his unique blend of length and lateral quickness, has helped elevate his overall game. 247Sports currently has him ranked as the 73rd overall prospect in the 2018 class.

Jay Wright extended Reeves a scholarship offer in February and the Massachusetts native paid a visit to the Main Line last month. Providence and head coach Ed Cooley, who has been relentless in his recruiting of Reeves since 2015 and recently landed his former Mass Rivals teammate Makai Ashton-Langford, appears to be Villanova’s stiffest competition for Reeves’ services because of Cooley’s efforts, as well as their close proximity to his home.

With Villanova’s (good but not great) 2017 recruiting class set in stone after the commitments of forwards Jermaine Samuels, Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree and guard Collin Gillespie, it’s time to look ahead to the 2018 targets that head coach Jay Wright and his staff are currently pursuing. All of the following players have received formal scholarship offers from Villanova…

Strengths:
From a very young age, Reddish’s talent has been undeniable. With the game of a guard and the body of a big forward, he’s a true mismatch problem, who has the feel for the game and natural unselfishness to match. He’s probably smoother than he is explosive, but still a good overall athlete, with long arms. He handles the ball well and can create for others but has always had an instinct for sharing the ball and scoring within the flow of the game. He’s a developing shooter and gradually becoming a more dangerous driver as he continues to fill out his frame and grow into his body. He also has great economy of motion in route to the rim with very long strides and quick hands on the defensive end.

Weaknesses:
His unselfishness and willingness to share the ball is both one of his greatest strengths as well as one of his biggest weaknesses. For a guy of his talent, he doesn’t dominate a game quite as often as he should. Some of that is due to the fact that he’s really only beginning to learn how to create his own shot and is still an inconsistent shooter from the perimeter, but his motor doesn’t always run quite as high as it needs to either.

Bottom Line:
He’s ultra-talented, naturally unselfish and gifted with a terrific combination of size and instinctive feel. However, he’s still very young and his game just beginning to evolve. Patience is a key but long-term he’s one of the brightest prospects in the class.

PHOTO GALLERY

HOUSTON, TX – APRIL 04: Head coach Jay Wright of the Villanova Wildcats cuts the net following their 77-74 victory against the North Carolina Tar Heels during the 2016 NCAA Men’s Final Four Championship at NRG Stadium on April 04, 2016 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Lance King/Getty Images)

Villanova’s Jalen Brunson (1) shoots over Creighton’s Khyri Thomas (2) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game in Omaha, Neb., Saturday, Feb. 24, 2018